The Act passed by the Virginia Assembly in 1720 creating the two, new Counties of Spotsylvania and Brunswick, originally called for the remission of public levies for ten years for anyone taking up land in these Counties. The Act did not specify what the public levies were. As with legislation passed in Virginia, it was necessary to have approval from England before the Act could be considered "solid". The people of Virginia often proceeded on the basis that acts which they passed would be approved. In the case of the new Counties, it was rather unusual legislation. Spotswood, who was still Lt. Governor then, accepted applications for land, but did not issue patents immediately. In the Spring of 1722 he decided to go ahead, as his term of office was probably drawing to a close. His successor might not be so lenient. Of course, he was one of the major beneficiaries of the legislation.
The officials in London were generous, but they did place some restrictions on the lands to be taken up. The ten years of the original Act were reduced to seven years. They did allow the omission of both the purchase price and the quit rents, as had been hoped in Virginia. They did set a limit of 1000 acres per person. The instructions from London were silent on another question. If land had been patented in these Counties before 1720, was it entitled to the relief from quit rents, and was it entitled to repayment of the purchase price. Spotswood had about 85,000 acres in the new Spotsylvania County and about half of this had been patented prior to the legislation. The new land he had taken up amounted to at least 40,000 acres.
This is one of the questions that took Lt. Gov. Drysdale's attention. And it led to a long personal battle for Spotswood, whose land titles were in doubt. Finally, he went back to England to plead his case (and to get married).
There is no doubt that the legislation had been hatched in Spotswood's brain as a way of getting lots of land for free. It might have been considered personal legislation, a private bill, as I believe it is sometimes called.
The Second Colony members were beneficiaries of the legislation. They obtained their land for free and did not have to pay quit rents for a few years. In the First Colony, Holtzclaw (680 acres) and Fishback (400 acres) were able to take advantage of the law by taking some land in the Little Fork. Also, John Hoffman obtained an 800-acre tract in the Robinson River Valley on 27 Sept 1729, without having to pay the purchase price. That was a nice start, but a lot of hard work was involved before the land was productive.
(18 Oct 02)
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